College: Windward Community CollegeProgram: Library

The last comprehensive review for this program was on 2012, and can be viewed at:http://windward.hawaii.edu/documents/Library/2012/Library_2011-2012_Annual_Program_Review.pdf

Program Description

Library Mission Statement

Windward Community College Library is committed to providing exemplary services that foster information literacy and enhance teaching and learning, and to developing, organizing and maintaining resources that provide for diverse perspectives and styles of learning.

Core Values

Equitable and open access to information

Education and learning

Service

Intellectual freedom

Cooperation, collaboration, and sharing of resources

Fair use

Commitment to the use of appropriate technology

Diversity

Scholarly communication and research

Global perspective

Commitment to the profession of librarianship

Vision

The College community will have access to and successfully use a variety of information sources from both within the library and worldwide for their academic, professional, intellectual and personal development.

Services

Information resources, including books, journals, and reference and periodical databases

Part II. Analysis of the Program

Rating: Cautionary

Operational Funding. In 2012-13, the library’s funding level remained the same as the previous year. Increases in operational costs and subscription fees were met by decreased spending on physical-format materials.

Facilities. The new Library Learning Commons building provides the space needed for its collections, computers, classroom instruction, group study areas and offices. While the building provides a sufficient access to computers and other equipment, additional staffing is needed to provide basic computer application support services. In addition to providing students with the help they need, this would also relieve the Circulation and Reference staff from spending time away from their primary tasks.

Physical Collections. The library has nearly 50,000 items such as books and DVDs in its physical collections. Although academic library circulation (loan) statistics continue to decrease across the nation, WCC saw a dramatic increase over the previous year; the number of loans rose 88.4% from 6,313 in AY12 to 11,895 in AY13. This included a 142.9% rise (from 2,457 to 5,968) of Reserve item loans, which comprised about half of all circulation transactions. This put a significant strain upon the access services staff, in particular. The addition of an APT Access Services Manager and a Computing Support student assistant would help to alleviate this.

Electronic Collections. The WCC Library’s online collections provide off-campus access to over 100,000 ebooks, millions of articles from thousands of periodicals, thousands of documentary films, and hundreds of reference sources. In spring 2013, WCC rolled out OneSearch – a new “discovery service” that allows users to find information in many (but not all; most notably, not the largest database) of the Library’s digital resources using a single search interface. Last year, use of digital resources in subscription databases rose an impressive 119.1% to 48,248 full-text items and videos. As the Library follows the national trend in opting for the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of electronic resources, we can expect use to continue to rise.

Among the best practices recognized for academic libraries, is the need to “meet students where they are” – which is currently the classroom, UH Portal, Laulima, Facebook, and on their smart phones and tablets. Reference and Instruction librarians should provide services to online students with equity, but at WCC, it cannot. WCC is lagging behind most of the other UH Libraries in providing chat and text reference services. It has a weak presence on Facebook, little to no presence in Laulima or the UH Portal, and its website is not optimized for use on mobile devices. The user interfaces for all of WCC’s electronic resources require customization and optimization. Students and faculty could benefit by greater access to online books acquired automatically based on use. This “Patron Driven Acquisition” model allows the library to make better use of its limited budget by paying only for material patrons actually use, rather than paying for material they might use. For journal and reference databases, interface optimization and widgets (to place “where the students are”) can help students connect to the information they need, thus raising the Library’s return on investment. Currently, few of these practices are possible with the current levels of expertise and staffing. For this reason, the Library needs to hire an Electronic Resource Librarian (ERL).

Collection Development. The librarians have collaborated with individual instructors to identify obsolete materials and add new resources in support of current program, departmental and course curricular goals. The library has followed this piecemeal approach for decades. Understaffing and technical issues have prevented the Library from starting, let alone meeting its AY 2013 goal to develop and implement a systematic, data-driven development plan for its collections.

Instruction Services. Librarians provided instruction services to classes (90 sessions) in AY13, including the basic research skills tutorials used by all sections of English 100 and English 22 (39 sections). Librarians delivered customized discipline, course and assignment-related instruction in 49 sessions, including 14 to Hawaii-related courses (up from nine in AY12). The fall 2013 semester saw a marked uptick in instruction, with 36 customized instruction sessions (including nine Hawaii-related). Library instruction also comes the form of point-of-need, one-on-one teaching at the Reference Desk. In AY13, library staff recorded 859 instructional interactions, up 23.4% from 696 the year before.

During a forum that generated possible action items based on assessment of the Information Literacy SLO for General Education and the AA in Liberal Arts, WCC faculty identified several top priorities, including the addition of librarians and increased use of their instructional services. We concur.

Reference Services. Following a similar trajectory in demand for services, the library staff answered nearly double the number of reference questions in AY 13 (1,101) than in AY 12 (573). Of these, Hawaii-related questions accounted for 17.2% of the total. Preliminary figures from fall 2014 show this percentage has risen to 38.3%.

Staffing. This was (and remains) inadequate to meet the steep rise in demand for library services and the added responsibilities and complexities of operations that came with the new building. A series of retirements, bureaucratic delays in hiring, an expansion of open hours, and a librarian’s informal, part-time reassignment of duties all exacerbated staffing issues during AY13 (and well into AY14). The Hawaiian Collection remained closed for the entire year from lack of appropriate staffing. The librarians lack the background in Hawaiian Studies needed to best serve the growing number of students and faculty in the Hawaiian Studies program. Many best practices related to providing services to online students and for optimizing access to online resources are not followed due to lack of expertise and staffing levels.

Part III. Action Plan

To remedy its most pressing problems and to meet future goals, the Library will request:

Program Student Learning Outcomes

For the 2012-2013 program year, some or all of the following P-SLOs were reviewed by the program:

Assessed this year?

Program Student Learning Outcomes

1

No

The student will evaluate information and its sources critically. (UH CC Shared SLO)

2

No

English 22 & 100 students completing the required Library Research Unit will, when given a list of available information sources, choose the appropriate sources & describe search strategies for locating the needed information.

3

No

English 22 & 100 students completing the required Library Research Unit will, when given the URL for a Web page, access the page, identify the site’s title and author, its publication or posting date, and evaluate key characteristics about the site in terms of the information need, including timeliness, point-of-view, scope, and authority or credibility.

4

No

Library Student Learning Outcome: English 22 & 100 students completing the required Library Research Unit will, when given access to a particular information search tool, identify appropriate key words and identify search strings that are focused and appropriately use phrase searching and Boolean operators.

A) Expected Level Achievement

At least 75% of the students taking the Library Research Units exams will correctly answer selected questions related to the learning outcomes.

B) Courses Assessed

Library Research Units (Completed by students in all ENG 22 and ENG 100 sections)

C) Assessment Strategy/Instrument

Students complete three, 15-question multiple-choice tests designed to measure basic information literacy skills as covered in the Library Research Unitsʻ study materials and exercisesin Laulima.

D) Results of Program Assessment

(73%) When given a list of available information sources, (a) choose the appropriate sources (70%) & (b) describe search strategies (75%) for locating the needed information.

(66%) When given the URL for a Web page, access the page, (a) identify the site’s title and author (72%), (b) its publication or posting date (51%), and evaluate key characteristics about the site in terms of the (c) information need (not assessed), (d) including timeliness (51%), (e) point-of-view (72%), (f) scope (68%), and (g) authority or credibility (75%).

E) Other Comments

These SLOs were assessed in spring 2012. Because the identified "Next Steps" were not carried out due to staff vacancies and other extraneous circumstances, no assessment was conducted in spring 2013. Planned actions should be carried out over the next academic year, with reassessment in spring 2014.

F) Next Steps

Consult with instructors for suggestions about how to improve overall success, or whether to take an entirely different approach to basic information literacy instruction for ENG 22 and 100 students.

Make changes to the instructional materials, with greater emphasis on Boolean operators, and on analyzing sources in terms of publication date and timeframe.